The Council of European Energy Regulators (CEER) has held a public consultation on the future role of the distribution system operator (DSO), in which all interested stakeholders were invited to respond through a dedicated online tool. The deadline for responses was February 27, 2015.
The European Distribution System Operators’ Association (EDSO) welcomed the public consultation and, in a statement issued following the consultation, said that the coming years would be pivotal for the transformation of energy systems in Europe into a real Energy Union based on decarbonisation, efficiency, and security of supply. “CEER has considered a broad range of potential tasks to be carried out by DSOs, recognising the unsuitability of a one-size-fits-all model, a message fully supported by EDSO,” the statement said.
In a Public Consultation Paper published in December 2014, CEER noted some important challenges facing electricity and gas markets as the Internal Energy Market (IEM) transitions in order to accommodate large shares of low-carbon energy and to ensure flexible response in the energy system. The paper noted that retail liberalisation, demand-side response arrangements, new technology, and distributed electricity generation have meant that the role and culture of DSOs has changed over the last decade and will continue to change in the future.
Speaking at a DSO conference in Brussels on February 19, EDSO Chairman João Torres highlighted the readiness of DSOs to meet new demands in a smart way, and the need for regulation and policy to catch up: “DSOs, even more than TSOs, are facing more complex challenges than ever before, yet are being asked to continue operating according to rules set under a very different scenario,” he said.
At the same conference, Erik Landeck, Vice Chairman of the EURELECTRIC DSO Committee, said that DSOs were key to the EU’s energy transition. “As the backbone of the European power system, distribution networks will integrate the vast majority of new wind and solar installations into tomorrow’s energy system,” he said.
To complement the recent public consultation, CEER will hold a public hearing on “the Future Role of the DSO" at its offices in Brussels on 30 March 2015.